Worldwide, people are gaining access to a formal bank account, which allows account-based instead of cash payments. Based on a novel randomized control trial, we document that the payment method is an important determinant of savings behavior. In rural India, we study the effect on savings of...

A growing share of the world population is getting access to a formal bank account. This allows a move from cash to account based payments. Grounding our hypothesis in behavioral economics, we conjecture that being paid on an account instead of in cash can play a major role in encouraging...

Islamic and cooperative banks such as credit unions are broadly similar in that they both share some risk with savers. However, risk sharing goes along with ownership control in cooperatives, whilst Islamic banks share risk with borrowers and downside risk with depositors. Islamic banking is...

This paper examines changes in the balance sheets of the banking system in five East Asian economies which were affected by the 1997 Asian Crisis. These countries have persistently accumulated international reserves since the crisis. This paper estimates the impact of reserve accumulation on...

This paper examines changes in the balance sheets of the banking system in five East Asian economies which were affected by the 1997 Asian Crisis. These countries have persistently accumulated foreign currency reserves since the crisis. This paper estimates the impact of reserve accumulation on...

We propose a parsimonious regime switching model to characterize the dynamics in the volatilities and correlations of US deposit banks' stock returns over 1994-2011. A first innovative feature of the model is that the within-regime dynamics in the volatilities and correlation depend on the shape...

Over the past decade policy makers in Latin America have adopted a number of macroprudential instruments to manage the procyclicality of bank credit dynamics to the private sector and contain systemic risk. Reserve requirements, in particular, have been actively employed. Despite their...